A former Heineken Asia Pacific Export (HAPE) general manager and three other people were charged in Singapore court last Thursday (10th March) over two schemes to cheat the company of S$10 million between March 2017 and July 2019.
The schemes allegedly involved Loh Yew Hui (52) and his wife, Hazel Neo Peh Hoon (50), engaging in a conspiracy with two others to cheat HAPE.
The two allegedly dishonestly concealed from HAPE the fact that Neo was running two businesses that secured contracts with the company.
The two businesses being Pines Impex and Citrus Impex, who were appointed as beer re-selling agents for HAPE.
Pine Impex was awarded a sale and purchase agreement worth about S$6 million and HAPE was also purportedly misled into selling about 2.17 million litres of beer products, worth about S$4 million, to Citrus Impex.
The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) has also brought charges against Chan Poh Kim (63) and Melissa Teo Sue Tshin (43) who was the director of the two companies.
Loh, Neo and Teo were each charged with three counts of cheating with abetment, while Chan was given one count of the same nature.
Loh and Neo were also handed nine charges for engaging in a conspiracy to conceal and convert their benefits from criminal conduct, worth around $2.47 million. Around $2.31 million of this sum is said to have been hidden in the bank accounts of Teo, Neo and a private entity, and another $156,000 was allegedly converted to payment of debts and for capital injection purposes.
All four will also face charges of concealing and converting, or facilitating control of the benefits of criminal conduct.
Teo is facing three charges of cheating and providing Neo access to her bank account, while having reasonable grounds to believe that this would facilitate Neo’s control of her benefits from criminal conduct.
The fourth accomplice, Chan, faces 6 charges of cheating and laundering his benefits from criminal conduct, worth about S$1.6 million. He is also accused of concealing about S$1.3 million in another person’s bank account, and using S$281,000 to pay insurance premiums.
In Singapore criminal cheating can be punished with jail sentences of up to 10 years and a fine. The four will return to court to face the charges in April.
